I like the messy bit of brand work, when an idea still has to prove it makes sense to people. It is easy for things to sound good in a deck but I’m more interested in what someone actually notices, remembers, questions or cares about. The ones that feel the most believable to me are usually the brands that do not seem to be chasing attention.

That is the way I tend to work too: keep it close to the audience, notice what people would remember without being told to and give direction from there, without turning the brand into content that looks good but says very little or making it so neat it loses its edge.